


sunshine gleams

by Trojie



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: AUs collide, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - No Band, Doppelganger, Light Angst, Loneliness, M/M, failed makeouts, no-one knows what they want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: for no_tags Summer 2018 - Prompt 6.) Pete/doppelganger!Pete, 'a footnote in someone else's happiness.'Sometimes you're not looking for anything, and something happens to you anyway. And sometimes you throw yourself headfirst into something wrong, because all you know is you need anything other than what you've got.





	sunshine gleams

**Author's Note:**

> OP, thank you for giving me the opportunity to write twice as much Pete as normal <333

So it sounds like a complete and total piece of bullshit, but the thing is. 

The thing is.

Pete has a fucking doppelganger.

***

_2001_

They meet the same way Pete usually meets people: at high speed somewhere with bad lighting and worse beer. He's in the pit and he takes a Chuck Taylor to the head because he didn't throw a hand up fast enough, and then a pair of thighs are around his ears, the guy who kicked him landing astride his shoulders for a hot second before he slithers down to the ground. He shoves his flat-ironed bangs out of his face, and Pete gets the split-second Polaroid-flash impression of bad eyeliner and a wide mouth and an adrenaline-pretty grin strobing before his eyes, before they're gone.

Everyone looks familiar in the pit. The scene isn't that big, and Pete's been in it for a hot minute. He knows everyone, right? 

The band plays on, and then Pete gets his ankle stomped out two songs later. He hobbles his way out of the thick of bodies to the bar, gingerly, trying to work out how much getting home is going to fucking suck. As soon as there aren't bodies to lean on to help him stay upright, he knows the answer is 'a metric shit-ton'.

Because everyone's on the floor there's room at the bar at least, although it's still so loud that Pete does have to yell and mime 'bottle' to get the bartender to bring him a beer. He props himself up on a stool and wriggles his shoe off. His ankle is already swelling. 

"Fuck." He can't tell if the shadows on his skin are just shadows, or the beginnings of a spreading bruise, but when he pokes them, they definitely _feel_ like a bruise.

"Gnarly." 

Pete looks up into that familiar searchlight grin again. "What can I say," he shrugs, ignoring the pain in favour of something grasping at something that might be more fun. "I'm fucking hardcore."

There's a glint in this guy's eye that Pete knows very well. "Yeah you are. Too hardcore to take a ride home?"

Pete picks up the beer the bartender puts in front of him and drinks it down, start to finish, knowing he's being watched and enjoying the frisson of whatever it gives him. His throat works smoothly and when he puts the bottle down, the guy is still staring.

It's like looking in a mirror. It's fucking weird, but Pete has got to find out where this is going.

"Not if you're my ride."

***

Pete's drunk on beer and pain and the contact-high of the pit, and on this maybe most of all -- being near someone.

Sometimes almost-kissing someone's the most fun part. Pete trails his lips up a sweaty neck and over five o'clock shadow that's tantalisingly rough, before finally fisting his hands into a shirt he'd swear he has the twin of somewhere in the drifts of his floordrobe, and hauling them hip to hip, body to body, mouth finally to mouth.

He pushes his knee between the guy's thighs, and grinds up. Yeah. 

Something's being muttered at him, but he's not really processing it, the kiss is too good, too hot -- then there's a shove and Pete starts to fall. 'Fuck,' he gasps, the little bones in his foot grinding painfully in the hot tightness of his shoe.

There's a second, in which he thinks he's really gonna hit the fucking floor, and then the guy grabs for him, gasping, "shit, dude, I'm sorry, I'm really -- I'm so fucking sorry, but I don't -- "

"Oh," Pete says. He's drunk enough and sore enough to pout. He shouldn't think the way the guy looks at him, with his sad-panda charcoaled eyes, is pretty, but he does. Fuck, he really does.

He really wants to keep kissing him. 

"But … I do," he says, a little hopeless and helpless

See, Pete, in private, does a lot of things he claims out loud that he doesn't. It's not a very exciting life, bouncing between classes he's only just passing and shitty basement shows, but it keeps his parents off his back and spikes his veins full of adrenaline, the two things he cares most about right now. If he has to be secretive about who he's open to fucking around with to get laid at all, fine. He's perfectly happy inviting people back to his closet.

"Yeah, well, I'm not you," comes with a nudge that tips Pete on to the sofa, so he isn't falling off the wall any more. The springs of it creak with a second weight, and Pete's heart does something weird when another kiss comes bumping soft against his jaw. "I thought that was obvious," slurs into his mouth. 

Looks like he's not alone in being unable to resist a bad idea.

"I dunno" says Pete, feeling for the hem of a shirt and being rebuffed, and kissing back anyway. "I'm pretty sure we're the same under the hood."

He doesn't get to find out if he's right, but … yeah, he's pretty sure.

He wakes up alone on the couch, mouth alight with stubble-rash and foot too tender to put any weight on without his eyes springing tears. There's a crumpled bit of paper on the floor, scribbled on, that turns out to be a flyer for a show. 

_i'll put u on the list_

He doesn't go.

***

_2003_

Pete's determined to fucking graduate. He hates every single thing about what he's doing here but he's fucked if he'll have gone through all this bullshit and _not_ got his stupid piece of paper out of it. So he's kind of passing most of his classes right now, kind of getting actual good grades, but it comes at a price. 

In the gaggle of people waiting for their coffee at the bookshop snugged into the ground floor of Pete's university building, he's pretty sure he might be having a break with reality. He's still mostly asleep on his feet, stomach still digesting the cheap ramen he ate sometime after 3am, before incoherence and insensibility masquerading as sleep finally caught him up. 

The barista calls out his order and another hand reaches for it before he can pull his brain and his depth perception enough into line to get his hand on the cup. He slaps them away. 

"Fuck off," says Pete tiredly, and takes the coffee. It has his name scrawled on it. "This is mine, I'm Pete."

"Me too," says the interloper, and Pete blinks, tries to force his fuzzy eyes to focus. 

Oh, good. His failed one night stand from a year and a half ago. Or his mirror universe evil twin. Maybe both. Either way, this asshole doesn't get to take the coffee. Pete refuses to let go and the other Pete doesn't push it. He clasps one hand to the back of his neck instead and walks alongside as Pete tries to just fucking leave.

"Are you… are you doing ok?" he asks.

Pete has an exam on Tuesday. They hysterical laughter bubbles up and has to be forcibly put down. 

"I'm doing fine. What do you care? What are you even doing here?"

The other Pete shrugs. He's got red streaks in his hair now, and his fingernails are painted black. "I was in the neighbourhood, I wanted coffee, and this is where I used --" He makes a face. "God. I can't fucking believe you're actually sticking it out."

Pete rolls his eyes. "It's not that bad. Some of the assignments are cool."

That's a lie carefully formulated for production of parental non-suspicion -- noncommittal but vaguely positive, signalling _please stop asking questions_. But this guy isn't his parents, and Pete gets nothing but a clear eye roll in response to pulling it out now.

"I always thought I made the right choice to drop out."

"Why did you?"

Apparently the pavement is super interesting right now. "Thought I had better alternatives."

"Looks totally like it's working out for you," says Pete, sipping the too-hot coffee. They step out of the building and the sun is shining, and all of a sudden the last thing Pete wants to do is go to his lecture, not when he's got a sad, pretty boy exhausted next to him who clearly doesn't want to be alone, echoing every single one of the feelings he's been trying to ignore. 

The windows in his apartment will be casting nets of gold light across his bedspread right now. It'll be quiet there except for the muffled noise of the traffic and the city eking in. 

"Come home with me," Pete says, on impulse. He offers the coffee up. 

The other guy takes it, pulls his hood up over his head and follows Pete to the bus stop, onto the bus, off the bus. He leans against the building while Pete fishes his house keys out. He's so clearly exhausted, as exhausted as Pete is, and nothing in the world right now sounds as good to Pete as sleeping next to another human being. 

(He guesses he's a pack animal at heart. It's just a pity he drives people so nuts he can't keep a roommate for more than a month. He brings plenty of people home, but this is the first time someone's ever come back, so maybe this time Pete will get what he really wants out of having someone in his bed.)

They fall onto the mattress together, although it's not like there are other places to fall. 

Dark eyes and dull-grey tattoos and sunlight through half-drawn curtains make a lacework out of the quilt, and Pete's so tired, so warm. On some kind of autopilot, he drifts his hand down his weird twin's rucked-up t-shirt and then his thigh, liking the feel of the denim under his palm. 

"I know who you are, y'know," he says, because when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, and this guy has all the same tattoos as Pete, plus a couple extras, and he has the same veins roped along his forearms, and the same laugh, and the same look in his eye that Pete sees in the mirror on the occasions he can force himself to make eye contact. 

His hand gets pushed away when it accidentally skirts too close to the heaviness in those jeans. He pulls further back, smooths down the shirt to cover over the exposure of ink on skin for good measure. He's not here for - he doesn't want the other guy to get the wrong impression.

"Trust me, you really don't."

***

_2005_

Pete's trying to box up more of his shit when the knock at his door comes. He's mad and sad and tired. He fucking hates moving, but he got a job out in the suburbs, and he can't justify staying here in the south loop any longer. 

He's been packing for a week, because he keeps giving up, belly full of weird regrets, and then having to start again. He's had the radio on all day, because he made himself pack up his stereo as some kind of like, gesture to himself that this was really happening. He keeps turning the fucking volume up so that he doesn't have to hear his own internal monologue about so this is how the world ends. 

He barely even hears the first knock because it comes in over a drum intro.

When he opens the door, the first thing he thinks is _jesus christ_.

"Uh. Can I come in?"

"Sure," Pete stands out of the way of the door and lets … Pete … in. 

"I wasn't sure you'd still be here."

"You only just caught me -- I'm moving next week."

He doesn't realise they're kind of yelling, he's so used to having the radio up this loud, but the other Pete makes a face and slaps at the power button as soon as he's within range. "Sorry," he says. "I just. Can't deal with that shit right now."

"Okay." Pete guesses the Top Forty is kinda annoying when you're stressed. He waves his hand at the chaos of boxes, in the following silence. "You're welcome to … sit, or whatever."

The other Pete sprawls on the floor, and then reaches for the shelf of CDs. "You need a hand?"

Pete squints at him. "Why are you here, man?"

He shrugs. "Because I needed to get away from my fucking life for a minute. C'mon, lemme help you pack. I can put shit in crates."

There's an _at least_ tacked onto that that Pete can't help hearing. He gives in."'Okay. If helping me box up Metallica's back catalog is your escapist fantasy, then … sure, have at it."

The look he gets is … distressingly grateful. He doesn't want to know.

***

_2009_

"So, what, you're a fucking accountant now?"

Given Pete's work phone is only accessible through a receptionist who answers with the company name every time, Pete's pretty sure that question is rhetorical. 

"Sorry, who is this?"

There's a sigh down the line, and it crackles. "Someone who needs you to tell him _... And Justice For All_ was worth buying."

"They did Jason Newsted dirty," says Pete, on autopilot, because he's only been saying this for-fucking-ever. "But that doesn't make it a bad album. They were trying out some shit. People need to calm the fuck down and actually listen to it. They couldn't just keep making _Master of Puppets_ over and over again."

"That's what I've been _saying_ ," comes down the line and oh, okay, Pete knows who this is. "There's nothing fucking wrong with a change in … style, or whatever. People'll come round."

"Dude, _And Justice_ came out like twenty years ago. I think people came round already, if they were gonna."

"No, I mean our - y'know what? It doesn't matter. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I should let you get back to work."

Pete really _should_ get back to work. "Do you wanna go out tonight?" he asks, though, trying for casual. "It's been forever."

It's been forever since Pete hung out with anyone. Life in the suburbs is deathly fucking boring, and all his colleagues are a million years old. 

There's a long pause, a tiny shuddering little sigh, a shuffle of the phone handset like it's being moved from one shoulder to another. "I have it on good authority I'm shitty company right now, but thanks. I don't want to bring you down with me."

"C'mon, we could go to a show or something."

A laugh. "Yeah, no, I don't think that's a great idea."

"What? Why not?"

"You really never turned the fucking radio back on, did you. Oh my god. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I'm in fucking LA right now, I can't come to a show."

Pete pushes himself back and forth in his ergonomic office chair, fidgeting, "You don't sound like you're having a great time out there," he tries. 

"I'm not, but y'know what, it's not always about me." Pete hates the singsong tone in the other Pete's voice.

"You're allowed to be happy, Pete," he says, with maybe more of a snap to it than he meant to give.

"Hmmm. Interesting perspective," is all Pete says before he hangs up.

***

_got your email off the company website hope this is okay. Just kinda need to talk to someon e and figured youd know what thats like._  
_i have so many good friends you see but i never have anywhere to go at night_  
_i used to pour my fucking soul out into a blog when i needed to but everything i write right now goes for lyrics and i feel like i'm being cannibalized used up spit out and i'm pretty sure i'm doing it to myself but i can't stop_  
_at least when they didnt like what jason newsted was doing they just mixed him out_  
_they let sid barrett go - think if i take enough fucking lsd they'll just let me wander off into the night like an elephant looking for its graveyard? i hope so_  
_Pete i know that sounds melodramatic as fuck, i don't wanna die i swear i just_  
_I dont even know man_  
_I keep climbing up a pedestal hoping they'll knock me off for good but its like i never fall far enough to break enough bones to stop me trying again_  
_swear to god i never meant to come back that time but i'm a narcissist baby, and your bed was warm and i think i wanted to see if we'd fuse, or swap places or something, if i touched you_  
_Not that i touched you_  
_sorry man i guess i just don't put out despite what everyone says about me_  
_At least not before the third date, altho if i'm right about all this i guess it would have only been masturbation anyway_  
_you said i'm allowed to be happy and like i think maybe your wrong about me but i really hope you're happy. I hope one of us is, or will be_  
_you did the right thing not dropping out by the way_  
_pw_  
_ps: fucking google yourself sometime dumbass_  
_xo_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope Pete Wentz has given up Google for good but on the offchance he finds this: Pete, I'm really sorry.


End file.
